Taking The Hit
by Mickeyallister
Summary: During Lee and Gaara's fight in the Chunin Prelims, Naruto switches places with Lee when Gaara's sand coffin jutsu is about to crush the bug eyed boys limbs. His friends wonder how he can heal from a completely crushed arm and leg in a week and a half time. No pairing Cannon except Naruto gets injured
1. Crushed

**Just a short thing I thought of when I was reading a different fanfic of Naruto. Nothing major changes in the cannon except Gaara and Lee's fight was last.**

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**Chapter 1 **

**Crushed**

**Third POV**

Naruto was pumped. Energized to the max as he watched Bushy Brows and Gaara face off in the Forest of Death's indoor arena. Lee was running at just about the speed of light around the sand genin from the time Guy-sensei said that he could take off his weights. Naruto and the rest of the Konoha 12 could only see Lee's after images blur into a containing circle around Gaara leaving 4 to 5 Lee clones kicking up dust and making a mini tornado.

Gaara stood calmly in the middle of the mini Green Beast of Konoha's track, slightly on the defense as Lee had been able to hit him a couple of times due to his speed. The tanuki jinchuriki has his sand actively moving around at the ready to try to catch his opponent when he made his next attack. The sand was actively moving around in waves as the Mini Green Beast finally made his move.

**(AN: From this point until Gaara catches Lee is all cannon so if you want to skip it there will be another AN)**

Lee stopped in a crouch underneath Gaara and quickly kicked Suna's bijuu jailer into the air where his sand was not near enough to protect him right away. Lee continued to kick Gaara into the air a couple more times as the sand tried to come up to guard its user. Lee grabbed onto the shorter red head as he started to spin and he loosened bandages wrapped around the other, constricting him where he drilled Gaara into the now cracked flooring.

Lee almost fell to his knees in sheer exhaustion and the tearing that happened to his muscles when he used the Primary Lotus. Everyone, except Gaara's team, was surprised when the small boy laying in the hole started to turn to sand. The real Gaara appeared from a rising spout of sand and Lee steeled his resolve as the sand exploded outward in a giant wave which knocked the bushy browed genin back to just about the wall.

Lee was brutally knocked around by Gaara's sand until he was able to catch his breath and felt his muscles had almost fully repaired themselves. His muscles were used to this kind of use daily and had built up this healing factor due to their repeated abuse. He quickly blurred out of the way of two sand blasts, and focused on opening the chakra gateways he could actually feel. With a burst of bright blue chakra, Lee's skin turned reddish and his pupils disappeared and his veins stood out more. Then the Konoha taijutsu specialist disappeared again in with a burst of air in all directions that the other competitors felt, even from their elevated position above the battlefield.

Lee reappeared with his foot kicking Gaara back up into the air. The ground broke apart and a giant explosion of dust filled the floor and obscured everyone's vision of the fight. The spectators looked around when Gaara was seen floating above the cloud with the sand still trying to come up to protect him, suddenly Lee appeared above the injured Suna nin and forced him back to the floor. Lee kept up his speed blurring around and keeping Gaara in a certain area to further beat him up without letting up. Lee continued this cycle for a full minute before opening the fifth gate and ramming Gaara's midsection, sending him flying back down until Lee's bandages pulled him back for one last punch and kick combo.

Lee was seen rolling off to the side of the dust cloud, while the rest of the ninja still could not see Gaara and waited for the dust to settle. When the dust dissipated, Gaara was seen breathing heavily with broken sand armor and in a bed of sand that was originally the gourd on his back. The Suna nin manipulated his sand into a hand to in order to grab the one who had forced this pain upon him. At a slow speed, the sand enveloped Lee's left arm and leg as he tried to limp away. Lee shouted as he tried to break out of the restricting sand.

**(AN Cannon part is now over for those who wanted to skip)**

Naruto's team had passed by the area that Gaara had taken down the Amegakure genin, and had gleaned from his actions and others talking of the red haired jinchuriki that he was not kind to any one, including family. Naruto debated with himself.

_The damn fox has healed me from much worse injuries than what he is about to give to Bushy Brows, and I don't let any one severely harm any of my comrades to the point where they probably would not be able to continue on with their dream. What Hokage would I be if I knowingly sent my ninja on suicide mission. Screw if I get disqualified, this is about Bushy Brows continuing on his nina way, I'll still be able to heal up and become Hokage._

With his mind made up Naruto stealthily made the hand sign for a kawarmi jutsu without the other jonins noticing (He an outrun and hide from ANBU with the kill me orange and without ninja training. Pretty sure he could get away with stealing the hidden pervy books from the Sandaime's secret compartment in his desk without him realizing). Kakashi glanced down at his only remaining student before realizing that he had his hands signed for the body switching jutsu and knew the unpredictable ninja's plan.

"NO NARUTO," but it was too late for the Scarecrow as Naruto was replaced by Lee after a puff of smoke. Who looked around in confusion before a look of realization crossed his features.

"Sand Burial," Gaara said as he closed his fist. A higher pitched wail was heard as the smoke cleared. Seeing that an orange jump suited ninja and not a green one was crushed by his sand, he allowed the sand to come back to him. Naruto was unconscious as he was unceremoniously dropped to the ground. Gaara was slowly standing up and reforming his gourd as Naruto continued to lay knock out and seriously injured on the broken floor. The Old Sandaime stood from his seat seeing his late successor's son simply laying on the ground with crushed limbs and no medics rushing to bring him to the hospital for treatment.

"The match is over. Gaara of the Sand is the winner," Hayate Gekko proclaimed and returned to the aged Kage's side.

"Medics take Naruto to the hospital to set the limbs as best as you can," Sandaime ordered the medics, who reluctantly loaded the Kyuubi jinchuriki with, no care to his previous injuries, onto a stretcher to take to the hospital.

Everyone else was dumbfounded that Naruto would jeopardize his career as a ninja for a fellow ninja he really didn't know that much about. Kakashi should have realized after the Wave mission that Naruto would do just about anything for who ever needs it, and pulverized bones are one of the thing that Naruto can easily heal from where as a normal person would not be able to heal. Naruto's resolve must have been pushed over the edge by hearing about Lee's nindo, he knew Lee would not be able to persevere on his path.

The Sandaime arose, "Even with the events that have just occurred, we will still have the same line up, Kakashi since you are Naruto and Sauske's sensei you will pick both of the numbers and take them the news at the hospital. I will make sure they are both held in the same room," the Sandaime made the hand sign for the teleportation jutsu and disappeared in a swirl of leaves to take care of his surrogate grandson and the Last Uchiha.

Hayate then came forward with a box in his hand, "Alright so finalists and Kakashi come down to the floor and pick you number or numbers from this box." The genin and jonin walked down to the proctor and drew a number, or in Kakashi's case numbers. Each competitor then held up his/her number. Hayate returned to Anko who told the AV guys to change the names on the screen to the set up of the fights.

Uchiha Sasuke vs. Gaara of the Sand

Hyuuga Neji vs. Uzumaki Naruto

Temari of the Sand vs. Nara Shikamaru

Aburame Shino vs. Kankuro of the Sand

Kinuta Dosu vs. Bye

Kakashi soon disappeared to tell his invalid students who they were to fight in one months time. The rest of the genin left with their senseis from the horrid Forest of Death with some physical and mental scars that will haunt them for quite a while after they have returned to their homes from the Chunin Exams.

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**First chapter done! I don't know how many chapters this will be, but I had an urge to write this before continuing my other project for the summer. Not too far with my other project, but I will keep up with it. **

**Till next time,**

**Mickeyallister**


	2. Healing

**Wow I've never had this great of a turnout for any of my stories within the first day. That first chapter was all I had so I hope this was fast enough for everyone.**

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**Chapter 2**

**Healing**

Kakashi had come back for the past two days waiting in his students recovery room. The Sandaime pulled his weight and had gotten Naruto and Sasuke in the same room. Luckily Jiraiya of the Senin had come back to visit the village for 'research' purposes and had placed the best retaining seal around Sasuke's Heaven seal. The possibility of a new Icha Icha book made the one eyed jonin giggle pervertedly and blush under his mask. As the jonin waited for either genin to wake up, he thought back to when he had arrived at the hospital after leaving the Forest of Death.

_A puff of smoke appeared in front of Konoha's hospital entrance and out of the smoke the Copycat Ninja walked calmly towards the doors. As he pushed open the doors a large burst of killing intent stopped Kakashi in his tracks. Being used to KI let him quickly shake it of and he walked to the epicenter of the blast. He didn't have to go very far to see the old Hokage glaring at two nurses who, he assumed, were the main receivers of the God of Shiniobi's anger. He decided to try to disperse the situation to find out what happened._

"_Yo, I was just coming in to check on my two cute students, can you tell me what's going on with Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto," the silver haired jonin sported his eye smile and calmly waved his hand in greeting. Both parties turned to him, and the KI left the room as the Hokage pulled out his pipe and cast a simple katon jutsu to light it. As the Kage closed his eyes and pulled in some of the addicting smoke one of the nurses was about to say something, but the other grabbed the woman's outstretched hand and shook her head sternly._

"_Uchiha Sasuke has already been treated and transported to recovery room 213. We simply must wait for him to wake up, within the next two days, and then release him," the nurses tone took on a more forced cheerfulness as she continued on. "Uzumaki Naruto was just prepped for surgery so that the doctors can do as much as the can to help his already healing radius, his ulna and humerus were still crushed in his arm. The patient's fibula has mostly healed with only a few cracks left to fix, the tibia and femur's crushed bones have yet to be brought back to their normal place," here the nurse looked around and leaned in close to the two ninja. "As Patient Uzumaki was being moved to a gurney, his shirt rode up some and we saw the seal was visible. My friend and I did the preliminary and thought that since the Toad Sanin was in the building and a fuin-jutsu master, we had him take a look at the seal for any obscurities." she paused. The Sanin walked around the corner as if he had been summoned._

"_Sarutobi sensei, I just checked the seal that holds you-know-what on you-know-who. The eight trigrams seal had a five elements seal over top, so while the gaki was unconscious, I removed the seal mostly painlessly for him" the self proclaimed Super Pervert crossed his arms, "You-Know-What's chakra is now running through his circulatory system and he should be completely healed within the week," Jiraiya finished. The cage nodde sand reminded the medics to put Naruto in room 213 with Sasuke when he was finished with surgery. "Well if you don't mind I'll be back later on this week to check on my godson recovery, and Kakashi," the Sanin's face became serious, "I'll train Naruto if you want to train the Uchiha, I would like to teach him a couple things I'm sure his father would have taught him by now," he then grew a perverted smile. "TO RESEARCH…AWAY," he yelled as he disappeared with a dust cloud and the sound of the hospital doors clanging as they brushed past each other! _

"_Well Jiraiya will be Jiraiya, Kakashi will you join me in Sasuke-kun's room for a quick talk," the Hokage turned away and slowly walked towards the genin's room and sped up once he heard the other ninja follow him. They silently walked to the Lone Uchiha's room. "I had asked Jiraaya to place a sound suppressant seal on this room before he left so that we can speak freely," the old man sat down in a nearby chair. "I just wanted to explain what you had broken up earlier when you walked in," he took a deep, calming breath. "You know just as well as I do how much the older generation hates Naruto for the Kyuubi. When he was brought in, the medics would not treat him as they said he was healing at a faster rate then even what they could have helped a normal shinobi, so they saw fit to simply place him in a recovery room straight away and await the fox's chakra to heal the boy." _

_Even with Kakashi serving as one of Naruto's ANBU guardians when he was younger than the academy age, he still liked to slip away from the ANBU after pulling a prank on a shopkeeper or civilian who had previously treated him terribly. It was at these times that the people who held a deep seated hatred against the infamous demon fox would hunt down the young boy and beat him severely. When the guardians finally found him again the groups would have just dispersed and they would bring in any stragglers who looked to get a last hit on the battered boy. An ANBU would stay with Naruto in the hospital to assure that he was treated and fully healed by the time the nurses would release him. Kakashi was lucky to have only needed to stay only a handful of times. From him being off of Naruto Guard for so long, he had forgotten how terrible even the medics under the oath to serve everyone treated the practically defenseless child. _

"_I see, you want me to stay here with my students until they __**both **__wake up," the jonin sighed. Not that he didn't want to make sure his students were healthy, he was just exasperated that anyone could even think to do this to a fellow shinobi, hell they treat their enemies better than they treat Naruto. Enemy ninja are simply killed, but the hyperactive ninja is always reminded by almost every person every day that his life has been absolute hell. It's a wonder that the boy holds just about no hate for anyone in the village that has done him wrong, which does not include a little over two handfuls of people._

" _You will have Sasuke more than enough time to train. I would have Jiraiya watch him, as he will teach him once he's released, but even if he can be serious," he released a puff of smoke, "he is still the same old Jirayia…I could just close the blinds so he can't find any distractions," Sarutobi mused. "No then he would just run after the first busty nurse that would come in here not threatening Naruto. Yes Kakashi I do need you to stay until both wake genin wake up," the Hokage leveled Kakashi with a stare. "At least you can't be late for this," he turned around, "I'll be sure they send in a cot for you." _

Kakashi came out of his thoughts to the sound of a groan. The sound had emanated from the bed off to the right of him. The dark haired brooder slowly sat up and brought a hand up to the seals on his neck. The jonin allowed Sasuke the time to come back into the living world, but as he started to look around he got his student's attention. "Sasuke your first match in a month will be against Gaara of the Sand. To try to beat him we will work on your speed and," he turned very serious, "I'll teach you a jutsu that you must promise not to use unless things turn deadly with this ninja."

"Hn," Sasuke said and then turned away. He swung his feet over the side and stood up, taking his clothes and walking over to the bathroom to change into them. A couple minutes later the boy walked out of the bathroom in his usual clothes. "What happened to the dobe? I've never seen him down for more than a couple hours at most," Kakashi was a little surprised that the avenger was asking about something that really did not concern him.

"Naruto saved Lee from Gaara at the expense of his right arm and leg. His mother's family was known for being chakra monsters and they don't stay injured for long, Remember when he stabbed the kunai in her hand on the way to Wave Country? I checked that night and there wasn't even a scar on his hand" here Sasuke nodded his head as both statements were true when talking about his hyperactive 'rival.'

"Are you ready to begin training me," Sasuke asked his sensei? Kakashi shook his head no and handed his student a scroll.

"I want to make sure Naruto is okay, tell him who he is fighting, and let him know who will be his new sensei over the course of the month for the final part of the Chunin exams," Kakashi appeased his student.

"Hn. Alright I'll be back tomorrow to check if you'll be ready to teach me tomorrow then," Sasuke turned to the door as it slid open.

"SASUKE-KUN YOU'RE BETTER," his other teammate, Haruno Sakura, tried to glomp him, but he moved out of the way and she ended up falling onto his old hospital bed. "OHHH I knew you'd be better faster than Naruto-baka," her hands were clenched into fists with palms facing towards her in front of her face. "After all you are so much better than him too," The banshee exclaimed in a matter-of-fact tone. She had missed Naruto's self sacrifice for Sakura's 'suitor,' and truly did not know why he was laying in a hospital bed completely unharmed. "Do you want to go out to lunch before Kakashi-sensei starts training you," the hopeless pink haired kunoichi asked expecting a yes since she beat (KO'ed each other) Ino.

"No I need to start training immediately if I am to get closer to reaching my ambition," Sasuke left through the already opened door slowly, then booked it from the banshee from Yomi (Hell) when he was out of ear shot of the genin ninja.

"HE IS SOOOOO COOL," she exclaimed and then turn to her grey haired sensei. "So what's wrong with Naruto? He doesn't seem to be injured and he was completely fine after his fight, so why is he in the hospital," she didn't really care all that much, but wanted to try to show Kakashi there was some kind of team camaraderie.

He sighed still knowing that the only one of his students that truly cared about any one else was the unconscious one and he was still one or two days from waking up. "If you really want to know then Naruto decided that since he can heal from basically any injury, he switched places with Lee before he could take a career ending arm and leg crushing," he had the most bored tone as he explained this because as much as he wished all of his students cared and could break the Team 7 curse, it seemed like that was not happening between Sasuke and Sakura's dispositions. Sakura nodded and turned to the still open doorway and walked out closing the door behind him.

He clearly heard Sakura's next words, "That baka why did he try to shin his chances at becoming a chunin?" Kakashi felt anger that quickly boiled away to irritation.

"Well Naruto, it seems you were the only one to take my first lesson to heart. Sakura is the true trash on the team, but Sasuke I can't really tell," he sighed. "One minute that gaki is brooding and speaking of revenge, but the next he could be having a decently friendly conversation with Naruto or simply being a somewhat normal ninja," he sighed again. Finishing his monologue, "At least I have one student who is a true teammate, this team might just work out." He shook his head and looked over to the blonde Jinchuriki that deserves the respect that is wasted on his other two teammates, then went back to his precious orange book.

About a chapter and a half after he had restarted reading the book, Naruto shifted on the bed and yawned. Now he seemed to be sleeping rather than just passed out. _Shouldn't be much longer that he will be unconscious_. He turned his attention back to his book for another couple of chapters. He was interrupted this time by Jiraiya coming into the room via the window.

"So gaki's still in dreamland," the white haired pervert said while pointing a thumb at he future student. Kakashi sighed **(I'm making him do that a lot aren't I) **he simply nodded. He was tired of waiting in this chair and as much as he loved the sanin's books, he was getting tired of just reading them to pass the time.

"He had shifted a bit earlier so he should be awake soon if you want to stay," the jonin pleaded in his head for his company as the nurses now avoided the room like the plague they saw the Jinchuriki. Jiraiya took a seat and and pulled out a familiar notebook, which Kakashi stared at while the toad sanin wrote out his thoughts. Jiraiya noticed the other man's stare at his prized notebook and made a quick decision.

"You know I never really have any one that I can trust to help with editing my writing style and the erotica of the scenes so do you want to read over it before I send it to be published," Jiraiya knew from the Hokage that the jonin was notorious for carrying around the latest copy of his famous books in one of his pockets to always have to read. The other man's single eye widened slightly and as Jiraiya tossed the notebook, Kakashi cradled it carefully with shaking fingers. He tried to compose himself as he slowly lifted the cover off of the front page. He was just about to uncover the coveted words when he heard a lot more rustling coming from the bed next to him. He turned his head away to his half asleep student now sitting up and rubbing his eyes on the hospital bed. _Just my luck right. When I finally get a really good break, my chargee goes and finally wakes up._

"Hey Kakashi-sensei, what's up with the white haired geyser sittin' in the corner," Naruto asked?

"Nice to see you have finally woken up Naruto," Kakashi replied in an exasperated and sarcastic tone.

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**Heh didn't know where to end it so I figured i'd end it here. Sorry for the wait but I just started work again and I've almost reached the next rank in Call of Duty Ghosts (6 more levels!). So just a little busy.**

**Thanks for putting up with me,**

**Mickeyallister**

**Also I will be taking suggestions for the next couple of chapters cuz I kinda have a rough idea, but I want something to flesh it out.**


	3. Explanations

**Alright I****'****m back and finished the Mason soldier rank after 21 hours, new record for me. Dauphin had taken 1 day and 19 hours, Barnett was finished in a day, and Superty was finished in 28 hours or so cuz I was trying to use a different gun that I didn****'****t previously use. Enough about that, I will still take suggestions on the story and will try to incorporate the ideas.**

**Big thanks to leafpool5 for some suggestions/questions, the guest for the well wishes in COD, and I laughed at psycho friend's comment of 'get strong gaki.' Thank you all for reviewing and I do seriously check all of them. Onto the story!**

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**Chapter 3**

**Explanations**

"Well stop just looking looking at me and answer my question, won't ya Kakashi-sensei," Naruto demanded. He was slightly glaring at his sensei as he didn't know whether he could trust this stranger, but it seemed like Kakashi was just talking to him.

Jiraiya grinned and proudly stood up, in a flash of smoke he began his own presentation, "I, young chunin hopeful, am the great and mighty Sanin of Mount Myoboku. Men want to be me and women fall at my feet in order to worship me. The greatest author known to man and lover of all women! I…am the great Jiraiya," the white haired man danced around and in another flash of smoke a giant blue and yellow toad appeared below the Sanin. Naruto face faulted

"Kakashi-sensei, who the hell is this Ero and why is he in my hospital room," Naruto said as he recovered. He couldn't imagine a guy this weird be allowed around any one, as it looked like that introduction was rehearsed multiple times over. The man was still crouched atop of the oversized toad and smiling way too long to just be nice, in fact it was starting to get creepy.

Kakshi scratched the back of his head which Naruto knew to be a nervous tick with his sensei. "You see Naruto this man is one of the three legendary sanin, and he knows a lot of cool jutsu that he wants to teach you before you begin the finals in the chunin exams," Kakashi waited for the inevitable blow up from the child when he finally processed his words. Realization dawned on the blonde's face. _And here it comes_

'YOU'RE SENDING ME OFF WITH THIS ERO," Naruto yelled outraged. _Why can__'__t Kakashi-sensei train me, he can teach both Sasuke and I to be super cool ninja. This Ero would probably just ditch me at every opportunity to peek on women and never teach me any techniques to make me a better ninja. _

"Well for one I am not an ero…I'M A HUGE ONE," this statement from the self proclaimed super pervert caused the other occupants in the room to face fault. Naruto was the first to recover and quickly turned murderous towards the normal pervert.

"YOU'D REALLY LEAVE ME WITH HIM?! I MAY BE BETTER OFF ON MY OWN THAN WITH HIM," Naruto shouted.

"Maa, maa Naruto. Jiraiya-san here is the strongest ninja, besides the Hokage, currently in the village," seeing this was not swaying his stubborn student he decided to lay down his two best cards. "He also knows many cool, strong jutsu and trained the Yondaime himself," Anyone who knew Naruto knew he looked up to the Fourth as his hero. Maybe the hero-worship would allow him too train under the sanin.

"You really did train the Fourth," Naruto said questioningly at Jiraiya. With the nod given by the old man, he was still skeptical of him but would give it a try. "Alright fine, Kakashi-sensei, I'll train under the 'super' pervert."

"Well I'm glad you can at least give me credit gaki, but don't call me any sort of pervert. It doesn't go over well with the _ladies_," Jiraiya drew out the word 'ladies' and added many embellishments, and an eyebrow wiggle for good measure. Naruto again jumped up on his bed.

"YOU CALLED YOURSELF THE SUPER PERVERT JUST A MINUTE AGO," the teen yelled at his elder. He just couldn't understand how this, this contradicting perv could possibly help him if he was being so confusing all the time. Naruto realized that with being that old the geezer would probably never change his ways, so he chose to just simply try to ignore the man's habits and just get a decent training from him to get closer to becoming Hokage. He sat back down cross-legged, crossed his arms in front of his chest, and turned his head side ways. "As long as you can train me properly, that is all I can ask for."

"What do you mean by properly gaki," Jiraiya asked clearly the village did not like the boy, but the ninja too. Didn't anyone around here realize that the seal was mostly just a containment seal with added factors for the Bijuu's chakra to never be too much for the seal to contain. The village had a walking chakra supply and didn't want all of that raw power to be harnessed to be used to protect the Leaf. Anyone with ears and some common sense could clearly see that all Naruto wanted to do was gain power to _protect_ the worthless Leaf citizens.

"Well everyone above chunin level knows about my furry tenant, and because of that they all despise me by association to the fox. All of the teachers at the ninja academy are chunin and only Iruka-sensei taught me something in my last year," Naruto paused to think back on what all they had taught him incorrectly to list off to his new sensei, who knows he might be able to give him a crash course on some of the more important things he had been forced to miss. "My previous sensei's were always kicking me out of important lessons, giving me exams genjutsued to look similar to what we got in the first chunin exam just mainly with reasoning, and probably the worst offense was to teach me no style of fighting," both of the men could tell Naruto had glazed over many other incidents. Suddenly there was a knock on the door.

"Hey-a Naruto, I brought you some Ichiraku ramen. I know it's not gonna be enough for you so we can go after you get out," Iruka paused. "Gomen Kakashi and Jiraiya-sama I didn't know you'd be here or else I would have brought more." Iruka said with a nervous scratch to the back of his neck. Iruka set the bag on Naruto's bedside table and turned to his superiors. "If you don't mind I'm going to stay here for a while, I've heard second hand from Anko what happened during all of the fights, but I would really like to know what exactly happened to get Naruto of all people to the hospital."

"Of course Iruka, I know that Kakashi saw the whole thing so he can fill in the details, but I am also interested by what happened in the preliminary round," Jiriaya looked to the blond haired boy on the bed to wait for him to start his story. Naruto thought back for a second as Iruka grabbed a nearby chair.

"Well I was completely fine after I fought Kiba and Akamaru and won, so I went back up to join up with Sakura and Kakashi sensei. Everything else was really pretty boring until the last two fights. Sakura and Ino KO'd each other, Neji tried to kill Hinata so I vowed to kick his ass next time I meet up with him, and then Lee had to fight Gaara," Naruto paused to think of how to say this.

"What ever you need to say we won't judge you, you know that right," Iruka comforted the conflicted teen. Naruto steeled himself for their reactions and finally took the breath in to say his part.

"The Fox had told me that Gaara was the same as me," Naruto fussed with the sheets nervously, he was never really comfortable telling anyone anything that happened that involved his prisoner.

"When did he tell you this," Kakashi asked his student. Naruto looked up gratefully and he sat up straighter.

"When Sakura, Sasuke-teme, and I first met him and his siblings. He gave off the same vibes that I get when the fox pulls me into my mind to speak with him," Naruto said still fussing with the sheets. "But it's strange, I haven't been able to even get a whisper out of him since before I switched with Lee."

"Say Naruto, can I get a look at your seal," Jiraiya thought he know what the problem was, but needed to be sure. Naruto shook his head yes and lifted his shirt. He quickly closed his eyes and tapped into some chakra to bring the seal into visibility. Jiraiya walked over to inspect the black tattoo-like markings around the boy's stomach. "The original seal is an even number, but Orochimaru had placed this Five pronged seal over that to disrupt the connection you have to the Kyuubi," He told the boy. "While you were asleep I took the liberty of looking at the seal and released the odd seal. This allows yours and the fox's chakra to flow normally again and reopen your connection to him, you never know when you might be in need of him," Jiraiya simply walked back to his chair.

"Well thanks for at least explaining to me why my stomach is sore, now I can heal it with ramen," Naruto perked up and turned to grab the ramen.

"Wait one minute gaki, you have a story to finish," Iruka said sternly, Naruto turned his puppy dog eyes on him and tried to sway Iruka to let him have his food, but the chunin had built up a tolerance to his students cute faces. "Nope finish your story and then you can have the food."

"Fine," Naruto pouted. "Oh well Lee and Gaara started to fight and it looked at first like Lee was out matched, then he opened up two of the 'Life Gates' and beat down Gaara. But Gaara was just a sand clone and thrashed Lee pretty good. Lee tried to come back, but his muscles were too torn from using the gates and he couldn't avoid getting trapped in the sand. Kyuubi told me that he could heal me while Lee's trapped limbs would be crushed so I made the decision to switch with Lee," Naruto was slowly moving back wards in the bed to get closer to his soon to be devoured dinner. "Lee didn't deserve to be have his dreams and limbs crushed."

"Thank you Naruto, you can eat your ramen now," as soon as Iruka had said ramen, Naruto was a blur and already had the dish uncovered with chopsticks in hand. He gazed into the golden liquid with drool coming out of the corner of his mouth.

"Hey sensei what's the deal with the veggies in here, I never get my ramen with vegetables," Naruto complained grumpily. He didn't like his all time favorite meal to be ruined by the green _things_ floating in the godlike substance.

"You need to eat your vegetables Naruto they will help you grow into a strong ninja and help you not be a shrimp," Iruka taunted Naruto to try to get him to eat the extras in his dinner. Naruto pouted further, but couldn't be repelled by his favorite dish anymore. The boy took in a couple slurps of noodle, broth, and vegetables.

"You know this isn't so bad Iruka-sensei," Naruto said through his slurps. Rather than yelling at Naruto for his terrible table manners, Iruka gave the boy the minute or two it would take for him to finish off the two large bowls of ramen Ichiraku had given their favorite customer. Kakashi didn't even spare the boy a glance as him woofing down ramen may just make him throw up and he was pretty used to seeing his student at the ramen stand with a pile of empty bowls next to him. Jiraiya was staring at the scene with a slightly disgusted yet familiar look, as both Kushina and Minato loved ramen just as much as their son does apparently.

"He's so much like the both of them its scary," Jiraiya whispered to Kakashi. Kakashi simply nodded and held his book discreetly in front of his face while trying to block out the loud slurping coming from the bed. Soon enough Naruto finished off the bowls and set the trash off to the side.

"Thanks for the dinner Iruka sensei! I was afraid that I would be left to eat hospital food for the night," Naruto patted his semi full stomach with much glee. "Say pervy sage you're not gonna stare at me all night right, cuz that's kinda creepy," Jiraiya shook off his memories of his student and said student's wife for now, and thought back to what he had wanted to say to his new student earlier.

"Thanks to the interruption of Iruka, we will continue on to talk about your training," said chunin blushed, but was quickly dismissing by the teasing tone and smile that the sanin. "Well from what I have read, you not having a style has left you to be the most unpredictable ninja because no one knows what will come next a wild haymaker or a brutal knee to the stomach. We can continue to use that in your favor, but we can still practice a couple of different fighting style's katas to see which moves you can incorporate in," Jiraiya paused to see confusion on the blond's face.

"Naruto, having parts or a full fighting style will help to increase the power behind your attacks," Ever the etcher Iruka explained in words that Naruto would understand and be excited to work on. "By practicing to have the perfect timing you can increase your attack power tenfold and instead of needing one hundred hits to knock out an opponent you can do it in two to ten," everyone could see the excitement on the teen's face as he started to grin.

"Ooo Ooo when can we start Pervy Sage? Can we start now? I want to see how useful this would be against that Neji-teme in my first fight," Naruto said all of this very quickly, but still audible to everyone in the room. Iruka blanched somewhat.

"You're fighting Neji in the first round?! Hyuuga Neji, rookie of the year two years ago," Iruka's mother hen came out over Naruto going into that kind of fight. He knew how the genius was and how he could absolutely destroy his opponents.

"Relax Iruka sensei I promised Hinata that I would beat that teme for almost killing her, and you know how I feel about promises to friends," Naruto practically stared his former sensei down with his steely gaze. The chunin sobered up and let out a sigh. _I__'__ll just hope for the best then _Iruka thought.

"Alright then we will also be refining your chakra usage with the tree walking, water walking, leaf balancing, and kunai spinning. Those will be a part of the warm up," Jiraiya paused and mentally prepared for the verbal assault in a minute. " We will talk to Guy-sensei about what styles may suit you, and if he and Lee can help you with your taijutsu's speed too. I'll get weights for your arms and legs so that you can move faster, and we will check for your chakra's affinities" Jiraiya took in a huge breath of air, " and we will not focus on any jutsus until you are at least proficient with everything else."

"WHAAAATT?! But, but you're supposed to teach me techniques and stuff that will help me with seriously kicking Neji's ass," Naruto was outraged. He wanted to learn some super cool jutsus from the sage. Even if he didn't completely show respect to the man, he still knew that sage was the same rank, if not higher, than Hokage.

"Relax gaki, we will be getting to the jutsu's from what I have heard from the Old Man and others is that you learn like a sponge when it's something you have to put hard work into. I was the same way when I was your age, so I can teach you pretty well. See Kakashi here was really good at book smarts, he was rookie of the year of his class and was very close to being a jonin at your age," Jiraiya hoped he could clam his student by throwing in some praises, it couldn't hurt right.

"Alright then Pervy Sage when do we start," Naruto was resigned to the practice routine now. He could see the benefit it would have to his career and he would have a better chance when he could truly control the massive chakra he held in his coils. He was simply surprised when he wouldn't be learning jutsus right away. Jiraiya smiled at hearing the positive response to his workout for the kid.

"We'll start tomorrow," Jiraiya's smiled turned a bit evil. "Get a good night of rest gaki, because for the until the Chunin Exams you'll be passing out from exhaustion every night," both of Naurto's previous teachers silently prayed for the teen who would be going through hell soon enough.

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**Sorry about the long wait. I had to finish an online class and that was taking up a lot of my time. At the same time I wasn't feeling anything good working with this fic and I was sitting in a car for 6 1/2 hours up to New York City and then back to my house so what better time to write than when you have NO INTERNET CONNECTION (I swear we should have wifi built into cars by now). Anyway I'm glad to have that this chapter out of the way and I have a better feel for how I want to flesh out the story. I will probably be going all the way through the Sasuke Arc, but I don't know how far past that. **

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~IMPORTANT~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

**Part 1: This will help write the story. I want the Sasuke Arc to happen very close to after the Chunin Exams so the Tsunade Arc will not be happening. So should Sandaime die fighting Orohimaru and I bring in Tsunade, or should Jiraiya help out and drive off the snake bastard? **

**Part 2: Also, I know of two chakra elements I will be giving to Naruto, let me know if I should just have him be able to do them all cuz of Kyuubi. If you want to leave a comment to let me know what you would like I will take it into consideration.**

**Please help me out here,**

**Mickeyallister**


	4. Chakra Training

***UPDATED ONE SENTENCE TO MAKE SENSE AGAIN* butterflypuss POINTED OUT THE ERROR**

**Sorry about the time between updates, I had started a good portion of this during my Christmas break but never got back to it and then had a really shitty semester from sports, but I can't quit because of scholarship and it almost being my last year. Good news is that bowling ended yesterday and I will have a bunch of time to work on the this and my other idea. Also most people wanted Naruto to have all of the elements, but there was a good portion that didn't want him over powered with only two to three affinities. Sommermaedchan and AnimeFreak71777 gave a solution to the overpowered Naruto at the beginning. It will be explained near the beginning of this chapter so for lack being repetitive I won't explain it here. Also I will leave another chapter or two for the Tsunade and Orochimaru-teme decision seeing as next chapter will finish up the training month.**

***Make sure to read the bottom AN as I am currently writing another like 20ish multi chapter story and want some feed back. I'm trying to write this one out completely before posting anything to keep a regular update schedule.* **

**Long chapter to make up for the super long time between updates (ps dont kill me)**

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**Chapter 4**

**Training and Other Offers**

An older white haired man and young blonde kid sat side by side in a large open field surrounded by trees near the base of a large oak **(Think Naruto****'****s Shippuden Training Grounds with Kakashi and Yamato)**."Alright Gaki. I know you just got out of the hospital so I'm gonna take it easier on you today," Jiraiya smiled hugely at the young genin next to him. He pulled a pristine square of white paper from a hidden pocket on the inside of his shirt and held it up for Naruto to see. "This is chakra paper. This paper comes from trees that had chakra flowing through them while they had been growing. Now when those trees grow up and we cut them down for their paper, it's not just regular paper to write or draw on, ninja will channel their chakra through the paper to find their affinity," Jiraiya explained."Did you get all that?"

Naruto nodded and twitched a bit wanting to move on from the study to more a practical session. They had been sitting under the tree for nearly half an hour now and he needed to move. He debated reaching out for the paper and finally came to the conclusion that he wouldn't have even gotten halfway before the paper would be out of reach completely.

Jiraiya continued on with his explanation, "Cutting the paper in half means that you have a wind nature, if it burns up then fire nature, crinkles up is lightning nature, soaks through is water nature, crumbles away then it's earth nature." Jiraiya calmly channeled his own chakra through the paper and it cut into three parts, one part was completely charred with the ash falling to the ground, the middle one crumbled like dust, and the last part soaked through and drooped over dripping wet. "As you can see I have the wind, fire, earth, and water affinities," Jiraiya smiled at the amazed look on his new disciple's face and pulled out a new piece of the special paper after dropping the soggy sheet leftover. "I have two different theories for your nature or natures and those can only be tested when you channel your chakra through this one." He handed the paper to Naruto who reverently snatched the paper out of the geezer's hand as quickly as Jiraiya had finished the sentence.

"Alright so just push my chakra into the paper," Naruto muttered to himself. He quickly did, but his over exuberance just exploded in his face, literally. The paper was decimated and he was thrown a couple feet back, subtly righting himself in the air and landing on his feet just to skid back a couple more feet. Jiraiya had fallen over in laughter and it didn't get any better when he looked up to the blonde haired ninja to find his face cover in soot and his hair pushed back and up streaked in the same soot that covered his face. Naruto realized what his new sensei was laughing at when he did a shortly lived face palm but didn't feel his hair under palm. He brought the palm back to see the black gunk. He wiped that off on his pants and swiped his forehead again to find more the particles. Naruto brought his black undershirt up and cleaned the rest of his face off, he tuck the shirt back in when he felt all the soot was gone.

Jiraiya finished laughing and noticed the younger spike haired male still had soot in his hair, but let him off with an affectionate hand on the head that gave a firm but still gentle swipe through the hair. That got rid of the rest of the explosions evidence. "Gaki, I knew you had a lot of chakra, but that much for a simple test that a genin coming right out the academy could handle with barely a drain," some light teasing was definitely in order for that blunder.

"Well you just said to channel chakra into it, you never specified how much would really be needed," Naruto sat back down with crossed arms sulking a bit. The sanin pushed over the moping genin and pulled out another sheet for his student to use.

"This time only use enough for the transformation jutsu, that should be small enough to not blow up yourself and the paper," he chuckled again at the memory. Naruto just scowled while again snatching up the other offered paper. He got over the melancholy feelings at the prospect of the new jutsu he could learn from this information. The blonde stood back up and molded the right amount of chakra into his left hand. Once he had separated the right portion, he _slowly_ added chakra to the paper. What happened next shocked both Naruto and Jiraiya.

Naruto's paper split into four parts, the first part burned, the next crumbled to dust, another soaked, and the final crinkled. "Wow Gaki, this means that wind is your own chakra's main nature, and the rest you must get from having the fox in you," Jiraiya explained. "So we will start with getting your wind nature under control and then work on fire since it appeared second." Naruto for the most part was still shocked that he had every nature.

"Hey Pervy Sage, what happens if I master them all, can I mix the nature's for even more jutsu combinations," Naruto asked excited at the prospect of learning jutsu. He began to drool when he thought of Haku's ice justus being at his fingertips. "Hey how weird is it that I have this many natures" Naruto finally asked.

"Well as a genin you should only have one nature. Most Uchiha have two, fire and lightning, as that is how the clan member chakra's nature normally lies. Once a ninja wants to make jonin they either must have a second or third affinity in order to go to that rank. Developing another affinity occurs naturally as one's chakra matures it will develop other affinities. But combining chakra elements to form other a whole new nature is something of a Kekkei Genkai because the mix of the nature's must be perfect for the attack to be its strongest," Jiraiya explained. '_I can see why Naruto could have wind as his own affinity, but how many of the others are his alone? Fire was the second nature to appear and that__'__s the Kyuubi__'__s main chakra nature, but how much really came from the Fox.__' _the perv silently mused to himself while Naruto was quiet… for once.

"So I'd either have to have the gene's from my unknown parents or guess the right combination of natures. Great just great, and here I thought I could learn a bunch more super cool jutsu that will help me protect my precious people," Naruto half pouted. He really had wanted to have the amazing ice powers that kicked Sasuke teme's ass. Maybe with a lot of effort he could eventually figure out the right mixture, but that was a long time coming.

"Many have tried to mix their natures to make a new element, and those same amount have always failed," Jiraiya sighed. "Mixing chakra is only for those with the specified Kekkei Genkai for that special nature." He had been one of those who had tried to create the lava release by using his fire and earth natures, but no matter what combination he used them in, no molten earth was flowing from his mouth. He had even gotten lessons from the Mizkage, Mei Terumi, herself who was known for her Lava Release techniques. "Enough with the natures, that was just so that I could know somethings to teach you. We will be moving on with a couple of chakra controlling techniques because even though you know how much needs to go into some of the simple techniques that you've practiced. Even though you are a chakra monster, you pour too much chakra and just waste it," the sage explained.

"I know the tree walking exercise and Iruka sensei made me do the leaf concentration one enough so that even if I were to lose my mind I would probably still remember at least that," the blond paused, "but how many others could there be?" He couldn't imagine struggling through twenty to thirty more of those exercises within the month and practically relearn taijutsu well enough this time to take down any of his competition in the next month.

"There are countless exercises that will increase chakra control, just about anything daily activity can be converted into an exercise," here Naruto had a look of pure terror seeing as the perv could now follow him around to be sure he did these horrid exercises _all day long_. "There's the exercises that we can do here like the tree walking and water walking, which we will start water walking tomorrow. But things like kunai balancing, leaf concentration, kunai spinning, and even levitating that can be done at any time," Jiraiya let this bit of the training sink in as the levitating would be a practice that would entice most to want to work up to it. "We already meditated, which we will start and end everyday with meditating, first I'll teach you the Shadow Clone Technique,"

"I already know that jutsu Ero-Sanin," Naruto scratched the back of his head. "I stole the Scroll of Seals before my graduation because Mizuki-teme told me that I needed to learn one jutsu from it cause I failed the graduation test. So with all of my stealth I stole the scroll and sneaked back out to the meeting place where Mizuki tried to kill me and Iruka sensei found me and tried to save me," the blond folded his arms behind his back and looked to the sky. "I came back in to save Iruka sensei and I used the Multi Shadow Clone Technique to beat Mizuki time to a bloody mess." Naruto grinned and turned his head back to his current sensei, who was looking as him with an incredulous expression that immediately riled the blond up. "AWW COME ON PERVY SAGE I'M NOT THE NUMBER ONE MOST UNPREDICTABLE NINJA FOR NOTHING," Naruto yelled and gave the other man an uppercut to the jaw that sent him flying a bit into the woods, til he hit a tree.

The Sage walked back rubbing his jaw, "Alright I deserved that one Gaki, but either way show me how many Shadow Clones you can do while still having enough chakra for yourself to do the exercises," Jiraiya asked? He knew the kid could make more than himself or any other ninja in the goddamn village, but he was not expecting the answer to be so high.

"Well when I was really angry with Mizuki I had made around one hundred, but I haven't had to make very many in mass since then," Naruto wondered aloud while going into a classic thinking pose **(not the Thinker statue pose) **and Jiraiya now knew better than to show his surprise. "Now I can maybe make 150 probably."

"Fine then for the rest of this day I will be showing you the exercises that we will work with for the rest of the day and this week. First would be the leaf concentration after meditation, but you already know that one, so we will start with the kunai balancing," Jiraiya pulled out a normal kunai from his weapons pouch and held it in an outstretched palm. "The key to this exercise is to keep your chakra pushing out from your palm at a steady rate to keep the kunai from being impaled in your palm," the man smiled cheekily. "At least with your tenant you'll be healed almost immediately after the knife is pulled from your palm." He continued to show his genin student how the kunai would float above the palm.

"Woah when can I try to do that," Naruto was back to his wonder and excitement to learn any new technique, even though it was based on his concentration. He immediately pulled out a kunai and laid it flat in his palm. "How did you make the kunai float," the blond asked?

They continued on with teaching Naruto the chakra control exercises until water walking was the only one that remained. Jiraiya was lying on his side fully balanced across the top of the gentle waves in the water while his gaki of a student was floundering near the shallower shore trying to get the grasp of the exercise. The notion of constantly changing the amount of chakra channeling to keep himself above the waves was not working with his massive chakra capacity. It also didn't help that the damn toad sage had summoned one of the toads that was in charge of keeping the water warm in their hot springs. Jiraiya had given him specific instructions to keep the water almost boiling hot, a very good incentive to learn fast.

"GAAAH," Naruto yelled yet again as he fell into the unpleasantly hot water. "Can't I take a break soon. I've been falling in here all morning, it's time for lunch," the blonde yelled while scrambling out of the water. His clothes were drying on some low branches on some of the surrounding trees from falling into the water right away. Luckily he remembered to bring his signature orange swimming trunks today simply because of his unnatural luck.

"Fine Gaki, Gamanouchi I'll summon you again when I need you but we're done with water walking for today," Jiraya let his summon know. '_Maybe he could try almost freezing the water tomorrow to see if Naruto would respond better to that, __Hiyaya__g__a__m__a__ would probably be willing to help there_,' the toad sage mused. "Let me go see if Asuma is around and able to help you with your wind chakra now. We'll get back together in about an hour so be sure you're here Gaki," the perv shunshined away leaving only a swirl of leaves behind.

'_I have to remind him to teach me that,__' _Naruto had quickly thrown his now dried clothes back on and leaped through the trees back to the village. When he jumped out of the tree line and into the city area, he leisurely walked toward Ichiraku musing about how he had come to get the wind chakra training with Asuma-sensei.

_So Pervy Sage do you have any exercises for training with my wind chakra then so I can use more super destructive jutsus," Naruto asked? Jiraiya racked his brain for any sort of exercise that he could possibly convert to harness his students chakra nature._

"_Possibly something to draw it out, but to truly master that chakra type you'll need to find a wind user," Jiraiya mused trying to remember if there were any active ninja in Konogakura that could help teach Naruto the wind mastering techniques. 'I already know the OP's files from sensei keeping me in the loop with the ninja that I sometimes require help from, but would any of the current Jonin know the specific training for wind chakra users.' "Naruto we will be stopping training for today seeing as I would like you to really be able to utilize your chakra's nature for the exam, it would really give you a boost in qualifying for promotion. So I'm heading back to the Hokage office to see about finding a wind using ninja for your chakra training." Naruto simply nodded._

_Depressed, Naruto walked back to the village after meditating and resigned himself to simply walking back to his apartment when ran into a wall of a person, literally. Naruto fell back onto the ground. "Geeze watch where you're going will ya. Oh hey Choji, Shikamaru, Ino what's up?"_

"_Choji and I just got done with a mission for today and Asuma-sensei is meeting all of us for lunch at the BBQ so that we can catch up and Shika can let sensei know how he's doing training wise," Ino answered while Choji chomped away at his bag of chips. "Ne, Naruto how's your training going, did you find someone to teach you?" _

_Naruto folded his arms behind his head before responding, "Yeah and he's a real pervert, I've had to pull him away from spying on ladies in the onsen to teach me sometimes. But he's actually really strong, one of the Hokage's old students." Naruto bragged a bit._

"_So Jiraiya of the Sanin is your sensei for now," Shikamaru spoke up bring his eyes down from he wondering clouds in the sky. "Orochimaru is a missing nine and Tsunade is female, but you were saying 'him', logically the only other ninja that used to be the Hokage's student was Jiraiya-sama."_

"_Yea we've gone over a bunch of chakra exercises and my control has gotten waaay better, but we're stuck now cuz Pervy Sage doesn't know any exercises for using wind chakra so he went to the Hokage to ask him for any active wind natured ninja to teach me the exercises," Naruto explained._

"_Well then it's lucky you ran into us. Come on to the BBQ place with us Asuma-sensei can use wind chakra so maybe he can help you out," Choji finished off his chip bag. He looked back up from the bottom of the bag to see a flabbergasted blond. _

"_Well why didn't you say so earlier__," Naruto yelled and Team 9 started to walk off. "WAIT UP I NEED YOUR SENSEI TO LEARN SUPER COOL JUTSU FOR THE EXAM," the supposed dead last turned and followed the new Ino-Shika-Cho team to meet their cigarette addicted sensei and hopefully bum some lessons off of him._

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**Sorry but this chapter was running really long and I was basically repeating some earlier things as I went on so I'm splitting this chapter and finishing the flashback and a bit of the training into the next chapter. The next chapter will be out in the next two weeks seeing as now school is done, it's freaking summer and I can actually take a break from my pretty calamitous (not grade wise but people wise). Already know what I want to type out so the issue is getting it out of my head and onto the screen.**

**Thanks again for not ending hate during the admittedly long break,**

**Mickeyallister**


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